Have you ever experienced a perfect storm? A perfect “life storm”, that is.
I’m talking about a cluster of big, challenging stuff that happens in your world all at once, often without warning.
Let me give you an example.
A family member of mine was surprised by her husband of almost 40 years when he told her he was leaving their life… and starting a new one with someone else. Less than 6 months later, her beloved mother passed away.
The pain of both these losses and the loneliness she felt was nearly unbearable. Then COVID hit. In a year like none before, when she dearly needed human contact and the support of her network, she found herself isolated and more alone than ever.
A life storm like this hits and suddenly the foundation of who you are gets seriously shaken. What used to support you falls away. It makes you question who you are, what you’re doing, and where you’re going. And it’s often scary and painful as hell.
Whether or not you believe things happen for a reason, when something shakes your world, at the end of the day, you’re left with one clear fact: It Happened.
Now what? How to even deal with this crazy shit, anyway?!
“What’s Begun” is a song I wrote as reflected on this question. I wanted to make a song that would be a place to process the difficulty of the times when it feels like everything’s falling apart, and a reminder of what’s helped me through them.
What’s gotten me through my storms is returning to the idea that life is for us. In other words, whatever’s happening – no matter how hard – is an opportunity and an invitation to wake up.
Waking up for me means being present. Present with how you really feel, listening to your life and moving into greater alignment with what’s true, questioning the thoughts and beliefs that hold you back, healing ancient hurts inside you -- all in service of answering poet Mary Oliver’s sacred question:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Living is fundamentally one long exercise in the art of creation. What are you going to make of this very moment? Who will you create yourself to be over a lifetime? How will you take the events, people, places and randomness that comes your way, and dance with it?
If life is for us, then even the storms are for us. Perhaps even ESPECIALLY the storms. When the old way is totally broken, you have no choice to create a new way forward.
And that’s what my loved one did – the one whose life storm I described above. She took on her perfect storm as a chance to become more of who she really is, to be a more conscious creator of what she wants to experience and claim her one wild, precious life for her very own.
How exactly things will look post-storm is something you can never really predict. Most things are out of our control, except for our thinking, our choices, and our responses.
But the mystery and the magic is this. If you take on the storm as an invitation to create, something beautiful almost inevitably emerges after the clouds clear and the dust settles.
Maybe you’ll find yourself in a new job, a new home, or a new relationship that’s a truer reflection of who you really are. Maybe something you knew deep down wasn’t working is finally finished, and you find a new sense of freedom.
Almost always, you’ll find a stronger, braver, more compassionate version of yourself.
So when a perfect life storm hits, take a deep breath. Be as kind and gentle with yourself as you can be. And remember that the first step in the making of anything new is the breaking of the old.
And maybe instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?”, try reminding yourself, “This is happening for me”, even if you can’t quite see yet how on earth that’s possible! Ask yourself instead: what’s begun?
You can listen to “What’s Begun” and download it here. And I’d love to hear from you: how have you taken a storm and moved through the rain into a new place? What’s begun for you as a result?
Love,
Kate
PS - You can also listen to "What's Begun" on your favorite listening platform: